Leadership

Etiquette for Social Networking and the Office: For Now, It's Up to You

By Stacy Blackman

Updated on: October 21, 2009 / 11:53 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

When it comes to rules for mixing work and social networking sites like Facebook, we're currently in the wild west. One manager may think nothing of "friending" his employees, while to another this may seem like overstepping a boundary.

According to a recent Knowledge@Wharton article, "Available All the Time: Etiquette for the Social Networking Age," it's unlikely that someone is going to emerge as the "digital Emily Post" to issue rules for the intersection of your professional life and your social network. At least for the time being, managers are responsible for setting their own company rules for social networking.

The article makes clear a few questions you should consider:

Should you friend your employees? According to the article, most people have both personal friends and work acquaintances as Facebook friends. Still, some employees may see a friend request from their boss as intrusive and impossible to refuse. Send friend requests to those under your immediate supervision with caution.
Should you allow Facebook breaks at work? Some companies believe Facebook should be banned during work hours, but others treat it like a modern cigarette break, seeing it as a necessary ten minute break for employees every few hours.
Should you ban employees from posting information about the company? If you work in a field that requires close guarding of information, it may be smart to have employees sign a document saying that they won't post confidential company information. This may feel a bit intrusive, but it's certainly better than having employees later claim they did nothing wrong as they were never told not to post sensitive information.
Should you use social networking for work communication? The article presents the following situation: you're home from work, reading your latest Facebook updates and a colleague messages you about a work emergency. While the colleague is getting the information to you efficiently, this situation would feel like an invasion of privacy to many people. For the most part, it's best to stick with the channels of telephone and email for work-related communication, unless a colleague or employee has specifically given the green light to use social networking tools to get in touch quickly.

Has social networking etiquette presented any problems for your company? Have you set any helpful ground rules?

Keyboard image courtesy of Flickr user DeclanTM, CC 2.0.